Return of the rogues

Boat/US Magazine, Sept, 2005 by Dick Thompson

Statistics show that a golfer stands a greater chance of getting hit by lightning on the golf course than a recreational boater has of running into a rogue wave at sea. Rogues however, like shark attacks, seem to spark our imagination more than lightning strikes and more often make newspaper headlines.

While a number of these huge waves appeared in far away places last year, they didn't really attract much attention from the mainstream press. This year is different. Recent close encounters of the rogue kind involving American citizens have heightened interest in these events and many are beginning to wonder if something's going on out there.

Rogue waves first made headlines this year in May when the 45-foot ketch Almeisan bound for Bermuda was hit one night, blowing many of its doors off their hinges and smashing windows. The Almeisan was on a voyage from Bridgeport, CT, when it encountered severe weather about 400 miles off Virginia Beach, VA.

"I was just coming off watch when we were rolled by a monster wave that left me hanging off my harness," said crewmember Lochlin Reidy. Captain Thomas Tighe and Reidy assessed the damage and began readying the life raft when another huge wave washed them into the open sea. "Fortunately, we were able to activate the ship's EPIRB before going overboard," said Reidy.

"We watched with horror as the raft, with much of our survival equipment, skittered across the wind-swept sea and out of sight like a balloon when it broke its tether," said Reidy. They were left alone, bobbing up and down, as gigantic waves swept over them for the next 24 hours.

"Both were wearing life jackets, but, after being tossed around in heavy seas for 24 hours, Tighe perished. I think Tighe's heart just gave out," said Reidy. "I tried to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to no avail."

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"Tom was one of the most experienced sailors I have known and I had sailed with him 16 times before--this was his 49th open sea cruise," said Reidy. "We had talked about going overboard one night and Tom said that our chances of being rescued would be nil."

"I don't think I would have been rescued if it wasn't for our life vest strobe lights and ships participating in a program called Amver," he added.

Reidy was taken aboard the Sakura Express, a Panamanian-flagged tanker, one of four merchant vessels searching for the survivors. "I was relieved to hear that our remaining three crewmembers were able to cling to the Almeisan and were rescued at daybreak Monday by the Coast Guard. Tom would have been pleased because he took such a personal interest in selecting his crew," said Reidy.

Amver to the Rescue

"I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for ships like the Sakura Express that went out of their way to search for us in extremely rough seas," said Reidy.

The Sakura Express was able to respond quickly to the emergency because it participates in the Automated Mutual Assistance Vessel Rescue System (Amver) program sponsored by the U.S. Coast Guard. Amver is a unique, computer-based, voluntary global ship reporting system maintained by the Coast Guard at its Operation System Center in West Virginia.

"The center provides the locations of ships that are near to a vessel in trouble," said Captain Steve M. Sawyer, Chief of Coast Guard Search and Rescue. "In the case of the Almeisan, we received an EPIRB signal and called West Virginia to give us the names of the closest ships, then we went ahead and contacted them to begin a search," he said.

Amver began in July of 1958 as an experiment, confined to waters of the North Atlantic Ocean, notorious for icebergs, fog and winter storms. Today, some 12,000 ships from over 140 nations participate in Amver worldwide with an average of over 2,800 ships tracked by the center each day. Over 2,000 lives have been saved by Amver-participating ships just since 1990, with 128 saved in 2004 alone.

Bahamas Return Ruined by Rogue

Another encounter with giant waves made the headlines in Southern Florida in June when two boaters were shipwrecked and left floating in the ocean for 30 hours on their voyage home from the Bahamas earlier this summer.

Experienced saltwater fishermen Roger Montz, a dental surgeon from Melbourne, FL, and his friend Rob Perdigon of Coral Gables encountered two rogue waves that sent their boat to the bottom and left them stranded at sea before a Coast Guard helicopter lifted them to safety.

"We expected to be rescued within hours, but the Coast Guard had trouble zeroing in on my EPIRB," said Montz. "They are still investigating why they couldn't receive our position," he said.

"Rob and I had just finished competing in a tuna and wahoo tournament and had taken first place with a 96-lb. tuna when I tuned on NOAA weather to get a forecast for the return trip to Ft. Pierce. I was concerned about Tropical Storm Arlene and the rough waters that were due over the weekend." said Montz. "We moved up our departure to Friday where the forecast of 4 to 6-foot seas was less than what I've encountered on many of my trips to the Bahamas, so I wasn't concerned" he said.